


mundus non novit nos quia non novit eum

by catie_writes_things



Series: qui coepit in vobis opus bonum (Father Todd AU) [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Catholic, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Religion, Siblings, Spiritual, batfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 23:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12641151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catie_writes_things/pseuds/catie_writes_things
Summary: Jason's life is changing. His family can see it, even if they don't understand.





	mundus non novit nos quia non novit eum

I.  _mundus_

Dick stopped by his apartment right as Jason was heading out the door. He came in through the window, in costume. Jason sighed.

“Hey, Dick.”

“Family meeting, now,” Dick returned by way of greeting, though it was at least with a smile. “Bruce says it’s urgent.”

“Crap,” Jason muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Okay, how urgent? Like, alien invasion urgent, or running new training drills urgent?”

“Why, do you have somewhere to be?” Dick asked skeptically.

“Uh, yeah, actually.”

“Really? Well, it’d better be pretty important if you’re gonna use it to get out of a family meeting.”

“I, uh, have to go to church?” Jason wished that hadn’t come out sounding like a question. It did seem like a pretty lame excuse when he said it that way.

“You have to go...where?” Dick questioned in disbelief.

“To church,” he answered, definitively this time.

“Jay, it’s...it’s not even Sunday?”

“It’s a holy day of obligation,” Jason insisted.

“A what?” 

“It’s the Assumption. I have to go to church today.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, Dick, because the pope says so or something!” Jason shrugged. The fact that his brother was wearing tights and a mask just made this conversation more awkward. “I’m kind of new at this whole...church..thing, but I’m trying to do it right, and I know that I have to go today.”

“Wow,” Dick said after a moment, leaning against the sill of the window he had just come in through. 

“What?”

“You’re being totally serious.”

Jason swallowed. “Yes.”

“Okay. You know what, good for you. Go to church. I doubt it’s alien invasion urgent. I’ll vouch for you with Bruce.” Dick had one leg out the window already.

“Thanks.”

“Sure thing. Say a prayer for the rest of us. It probably is going to be training drills.”

Jason laughed. “Of course.”

He knew Dick had been joking, but he would say a prayer for him anyway.

* * *

  
“Where’s Jason?” Bruce asked immediately when Dick showed up in the cave alone.

“I talked to him. He’s got something important to do,” Dick assured.

“This is important,” Bruce replied. He had the cowl down, but he was fully capable of using the Batman glare without it.

“Come on, Bruce. Is it an alien invasion?” Dick met Bruce’s formidable stare with his own. There was a tense moment. At last, Bruce sighed.

“No,” he admitted. “Tim and I have come up with some new drills to run through…”

Later, after several grueling rounds of training drills, Bruce pulled Dick aside as the others dragged themselves tiredly towards the showers.

“Where _is_ Jason?” he asked in a low voice.

“Honestly? He said he had to go to church today.”

“Hm.” Bruce considered for a moment. “It is the Assumption,” he finally said, half to himself.

Then he walked away without another word.  
  


* * *

II.  _non novit_  
  
Snow was just starting to fall outside. It was supposed to be a light dusting, just enough to give the appropriate seasonal ambiance without making the roads treacherous.

As Jason grabbed his coat from where he’d left it in the sitting room of the manor, he noticed Tim curled in what had to be an uncomfortable position against the arm of the couch, a book held limply in his hands and eyes half shut.

“Hey,” he said, gently nudging his younger brother fully awake. “Go to bed, or Santa Claus won’t come. I don’t want to find you still here when I get back.”

Tim blinked up at him groggily. “You’re not going on patrol on Christmas Eve.”

“No, I’m not going on patrol,” Jason agreed. “I’m going to Mass.”

“Oh.” Tim blinked a few more times. “That’s...weird.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Going to church on Christmas is weird?”

“No.” Tim yawned and stretched. “It’s weird that you’re doing it.”

Jason gave an exasperated sigh. “Why is it weird that I’m going to church? Why does everybody say that?”

“I dunno, I guess you don’t seem like the church type?” Tim answered with a shrug, sitting up.

Jason frowned. “Why not?”

Tim looked at him for a moment. “Really, Jay? You don’t know why not?”

Jason pulled on his coat and shoved his hands in his pockets, checking his keys were still there. “Well, maybe I don’t want to be the bad son for the rest of my life, okay,” he said irritably.

His brother’s eyes widened slightly. “Jason, I didn’t say you were-”

“Forget it, Tim,” he said with a shrug. “It’s Christmas. I’m going to Mass. I don’t want to argue.”

“Fine. Have fun.”

The casual response struck Jason as so inappropriate he actually chuckled. “That’s not...you don’t go to church for  _ fun _ .”

“Okay, whatever,” Tim said with a tired grin. “You’d know more about it than me, apparently.”

“You could...come with me?” Jason offered hesitantly.

“Oh my god,” Tim said, his grin widening.

“What?”

“Are you trying to evangelize me?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Is that a no, then?”

“Oh my god, you’re absolutely trying to evangelize me,” Tim said with gleeful amusement. “You’re asking me to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”

“I’m suggesting you could go to church on Christmas,” Jason deadpanned.

“Yeah, same thing,” Tim responded with an equivocal wave of his hand.

“So do you want to come or not?”

“Nah, I’m good,” he declined with a chuckle. “But I take it back, Jay. You totally are the church type.”

“Whatever, nerd,” Jason muttered as he zipped up his coat. “Go to bed.”

And he headed out into the snow, still feeling like Tim was laughing at him.

* * *

When he returned late that night, he found Bruce awake, walking the house.

“Did you go to Mass?” Bruce asked him softly, cutting off the Santa Claus joke Jason had been about to make.

“Yeah,” he replied instead, in an equally low voice.

Bruce nodded. Then, after a moment, he spoke again. “I wish you had told me you were going.”

“Why,” Jason asked, “would you have come with me?”

To his surprise, Bruce smiled sadly. “Maybe,” he said. Then he clapped Jason roughly on the shoulder with one hand. “Merry Christmas, Jay. Go get some sleep.”

“Merry Christmas, Bruce,” Jason responded. Then he headed for his room, leaving his father to his own silent vigil.

* * *

III.  _nos_  
  
“Will you be staying for dinner, Master Jason?” Alfred asked as Jason settled into the couch to wait for Bruce. From the armchair by the fireplace, Damian gave him a distracted wave by way of greeting, not looking up from his sketchbook.

“Not tonight, Alfred,” Jason declined, returning Damian’s wave. “But I will be here on Friday.”

“I’ll be sure to make fish, then,” Alfred said with a nod.

“Thanks,” Jason replied appreciatively. Damian looked up from his drawing at last with a quizzical look as Alfred left the room.

“Why is Alfred making fish for you?” he asked, his brows knit together.

“Because I don’t eat meat on Fridays,” Jason answered.

Damian only looked more confused. “Fish is meat.”

“Fish doesn’t count,” Jason clarified.

“Says who?”

Jason shrugged. “The Church.”

“Oh.” Damian’s face smoothed back into a look of casual disinterest. He resumed his sketching idly. “Is this one of your religious things?”

Jason leaned back into the couch, looking up at the elaborate woodwork ceiling. “Yeah, it’s one of my religious things.”

“I don’t see the point.”

“It’s a penance.”

“Your god says you must eat fish once a week to atone for your sins?” Damian asked incredulously.

“It’s about making small sacrifices,” Jason said exasperatedly to the ceiling.

“ _ TT _ . I still don’t see the point.”

Jason looked back at Damian, who was still looking only at his sketchbook. “You don’t see the point of any of it.”

“Exactly,” Damian replied with finality. Jason didn’t particularly feel like continuing the conversation anyway, so he didn’t press the issue.  
  


* * *

Once he’d finished giving Bruce his update on the case they were working on, Jason prepared to leave. “You’re not staying for dinner?” Bruce asked.

“Not tonight,” Jason said as they walked towards the door. “I’ll be around Friday night, though.”

“Alright,” Bruce said with a nod. “I’ll ask Alfred to make fish.”

Jason smiled, seeing Damian’s head twitch ever so slightly in their direction from where he was still curled up in the armchair by the fireplace. “He already knows. But thanks.”

* * *

IV.  _quia_  
  
After nearly an hour of helping Cassandra with her homework, Jason could tell she was getting frustrated. “Alright,” he said, “I think it’s time for a break.”

Cassandra sighed and nodded in agreement, setting down her pencil and leaning back in her chair. She closed her eyes for a moment as Jason marked their place in the history textbook.

“You don’t fight anymore,” Cassandra said abruptly, opening her eyes and looking at him.

“What?” Jason was taken aback. “Just because I haven’t been going out on patrol as much-”

“You don’t fight.” She insisted. “Not here.” She placed one hand over his heart.

“I’m not…” Jason sighed. “You’re right. I don’t.”

“Why?” his sister asked, all innocent curiosity.

“I guess I don’t... _ need _ it like I used to,” he answered. “Like Bruce does, and even Dick, and you do. I do it because I can, not because I have to.”

Cassandra studied him for a moment. He knew she was processing his words along with what she could read from his body language. “Good,” she finally concluded with a nod.

“Good?”

“Shouldn’t need this,” she said, making bat ears with her fingers.

“You shouldn’t either,” Jason pointed out.

“But we do,” Cassandra responded with a sad smile.

Jason had no answer for that, so they lapsed into silence for several minutes. It wasn’t awkward - Cassandra was the last person to mind a lull in conversation. Finally, Jason spoke again.

“How long have you noticed?”

“Since you…” Cassandra made the sign of the cross. “Started then, a little. Now? Obvious.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, thinking back over the last few years. “I guess that figures.”

“I don’t understand,” Cassandra said. It wasn’t a question, like it would have been from Dick, or a judgement, like it would have been from Damian. It was just a statement.

“Me neither, Cass,” Jason confessed. “Me neither.”

* * *

After they had resumed their work, finishing with history and moving on to physics, Bruce appeared silently in the doorway of the dining room, watching them.

Jason didn’t notice him there, but Cassandra did. She smiled at her father and gave a pointed glance at her brother, who was still engrossed in reading a passage from her textbook out loud to her. The peace in his heart was written plainly over every inch of his easy posture, even in this mundane task.

Bruce looked at Jason for a moment, then smiled back at Cassandra. He saw it, too.

Without a word, Bruce disappeared from the doorway as stealthily as he had come, and Cassandra returned her attention to her homework.

* * *

V.  _non novit_  
  
“So what’s your thing?” Dick asked casually as Duke shuffled the deck of cards. The informally dubbed “Bat-Siblings Poker Night” was a semi-regular event when all of them were in Gotham.

“What?” Duke asked in bewilderment.

“Each of us has a thing,” Dick explained. “You know, like a boy band: the cute one, the angsty one, the crazy one…”

“We are not a boyband, Grayson,” Damian cut in.

“Yeah but we could be,” Dick insisted. “Have you ever heard Jason sing?”

“None of us plays an instrument,” Tim countered.

Jason rolled his eyes. “Nobody in a boyband plays an instrument.”

“What about Cass?” Tim persisted. “How are we a boyband if we’ve got her?”

Cassandra shook her head. “Solo career,” she said.

“Anyway,” Dick continued. “We all know I’m the cute one. Tim’s the smart one, and Damian’s the crazy one.” Damian threw a fistfull of popcorn at him. Dick didn’t even flinch. “I rest my case. So what’s your thing?”

“What’s Jason?” Duke deflected, starting to deal out the cards.

“Jason’s the religious fanatic,” Tim answered.

“I don’t think that’s an archetypal teen idol, Drake,” Damian criticized.

“Maybe it should be,” Jason said brightly. Tim snorted into his soda, barely avoiding spilling it.

“Really?” Duke said, pausing mid-deal. “I would have thought for sure he’d be the angsty one.”

“A common misconception,” Dick assured him. “It’s just all that Catholic guilt.” Tim broke out into actual laughter, and even Damian chuckled.

“No, it’s my healthy disdain for this fallen world,” Jason said in the same bright tone.

“He actually means that,” Dick stage-whispered to Duke, while Tim continued to laugh. Jason looked at Cassandra and shrugged dramatically. She smiled.

“Yeah,” Duke said, “Can I be the normal one?”

There was a moment of silence.

“No,” the other five siblings said in unison.

“Figures,” Duke muttered as he finished dealing the cards. “Nothing about this family is normal.”

* * *

VI.  _eum_  
  
Jason and Duke finished giving Bruce their report on the night’s events - a relatively uncomplicated night out in Gotham, all things considered. Duke headed for the showers, but Jason lingered by the computer where Bruce had been working while he waited for their return.

“Was there something else?” Bruce asked.

Jason took a deep breath, fingers drumming against the rim of the helmet he held under one arm. He should have told Bruce a long time ago, but he’d never worked up the nerve, and now was left dropping the news at the last minute. “This was my last patrol,” he said at last. “I’m giving up the Red Hood.”

Bruce didn’t even blink. “I see. And why are you doing that?”

“I applied...and I’ve been accepted...and I’m going to enter seminary in the fall,” Jason answered in a rush. “So I’m giving up the Red Hood, and all of this.” He gestured at the cave around them with the hand not holding the helmet.

Bruce’s face remained neutral. “You’re giving it up to be...a priest?” he asked, in a tone which likewise betrayed nothing of what he might be thinking.

“Yes,” Jason said firmly.

Bruce looked at him for a long time. Jason waited for the follow up questions, or the criticisms, or the attempt to talk him out of it. None were forthcoming.

“I used to think,” Bruce said very softly, “a long time ago, when my mother used to take me to church, that I would have liked to be a priest.”

That wasn’t even on the list of possible reactions Jason had been expecting. “You’ve...never told me that before,” he said.

“I’ve never told anyone, except my mother,” Bruce admitted. “But that was...a long time ago.” Though he kept his face carefully impassive, sadness had crept into his voice; just a hint of what was in his heart, Jason knew.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I...I’m very proud of you, Jason.” Bruce stood and came closer, placing both hands on Jason’s shoulders. “I’m glad you’re able to do this.”

Jason blinked back unexpected tears. “I was never a very good Robin anyway,” he joked.

Even more unexpectedly, Bruce embraced him. “You are something even better than Robin,” he assured his son.

And Jason realized that, in his own way, imperfectly but perhaps as much as anyone could, his father understood.

  
  



End file.
